For Police Officers and Pilots, Moments of Terror

“Hours and hours of boredom, with a few moments of sheer terror” – an old adage frequently used by pilots, but just as easily applied to police officers and a few others.

Stephen Reynolds of Montague

"Hours and hours of boredom, with a few moments of sheer terror" – an old adage frequently used by pilots, but just as easily applied to police officers and a few others. That moment for a pilot may be the cough, sputter and silence of what may have been a smooth-running engine just minutes before. For the police officer, it may be looking down the business end of a gun after what appeared to be a routine traffic stop.

Death may result in either instance, depending on what happens next. The professional may have years of training and experience in learning to avoid those moments (the ultimate avoidance, of course, is not to enter into law enforcement or flying in the first place). There isn't a day goes by that either one is not aware of the constant possibility of the terror raising its head. But no amount of training or awareness will help them if the pilot hasn't anywhere to land or the officer has the hammer dropped on him, as in the case of recent law enforcement officer deaths in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan and Florida.

For the policeman, adrenaline begins to pump the minute he decides to stop a vehicle, and that adrenaline shifts to high speed if the driver makes a break for it. One thing for sure, he'll be chased, or intercepted by another police unit, or both. Why is he running? Did he just rob a store, burglarize a house, steal a car ... kill someone? Or is it something less serious? The officer doesn't know, but if he is smart, he will be prepared for the worst case. Not macho, just smart.

When the officer makes the stop, his reactions will be somewhat behind the other person's decisions. He has been trained not to overreact, but he must control the situation, yet only use the minimum force necessary to affect the arrest. He seldom has the advantage. He is no mind-reader, and his reaction in a tight spot will have to be fast and final. There is a forever to finality.Bill Pfalmer wasn't a rookie cop. He had several years experience as a state and city policeman. A young offender hopped out of a stolen car and shot Bill down as he walked up. Bill said later he wanted to shoot back, but his legs were in the way. He lay on his back in the street and he thought his legs were sticking straight up in the air. He could feel them up there; the sensation of them in the air. But they weren't in the air, they were laying there useless, and he never really felt the sensation again – or any sensation below the waist, for that matter.

This wasn't Los Angeles, Calif. in 2012. This was Anchorage, Alaska in 1954. They didn't often shoot cops in those days.

Bill never walked again. A young man of 27 when he was gunned down (with a wife and three small sons at home), he spent the next 16 years – the rest of his life – in a wheelchair. He passed away the day after Christmas in 1970.His youngest son, now a grown man with children of his own, told me, "I was just a baby when Dad got hurt. I grew up not knowing him any other way but in that wheelchair. I grew up knowing my dad was always going to be there when I got home. Mom worked all the time and Dad took care of us as best he could. He had a great sense of humor and a good outlook on life. He taught us boys a lot and, you know, I never knew of him to be bitter over what happened. He didn't get any pension from that episode, so the family had it pretty tough, I guess."

We've come a long way in society since Bill Pfalmer was shot. A long way in a variety of directions, good and bad ... you fill in the blanks. Airplane engines still cough, sputter and quit, and police officers still make traffic stops alone. Our cops are better trained, but so are the crooks.

How old the crook is doesn't always mean much – the Mafia is run by septuagenarians, and young kids kill people every day. In fact, when they are young they don't even know why sometimes. You could have asked Bill Pfalmer why. He had no idea it was going to be his moment of sheer terror. Or you could ask the 44 Alaska law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty since statehood, or the 1,527 California officers killed since records have been kept. You could ask them if they were still here.

– Stephen Reynolds is a retired law enforcement officer and commercial pilot from Alaska and New Mexico. His latest book, "From a Bush Wing: Notes of an Alaska Wildlife Trooper," is available from Amazon.com.